ASSANGE UPDATE: JUNE 2023

 

JULIAN ASSANGE, who has been imprisoned for over four years at London’s maximum-security prison, Belmarsh, and prior to that was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London and sequestered there for nearly 7 years  is now one step closer to being extradited to the United States to face a dog pile of legal charges filed under the 1917 “Espionage Act”. These trumped-up charges—Assange is not an American after all, so how can he be charged under a law meant for U.S. citizens? —are meant as a punishment and to send a message to others who may contemplate such journalistic ventures in the future. The American establishment sees Assange as an enemy and they wish to destroy him because he and the organization he founded, WikiLeaks, revealed their secrets of political malfeasance, election chicanery, wrong doings by elites, the military, politicos of all stripes--crimes that in another time the revelation of which would be seen as “necessary for the public good”.

TODAY, what the Washington establishment really wants is for Assange to die, to be whisked into the bowels of the U.S. prison system until either his health or despair overcomes him. They want him silenced. Beaten.

AND HIS OFFENCE? There's many: He exposed war crimes committed by American forces in the “Afghan War Logs”, and similar cases from Iraq including the infamous “Collateral Damage” video, leaked by Chelsea Manning. It is perhaps the most vivid and shocking evidence ever published by WikiLeaks. To be clear: Assange was its publisher. He was not a spy for Russia, nor had he hacked into government archives. He received leaked information from whistle-blowers in his role as a journalist. EXPOSING such illicit secrets is demonstrably in the public good and is necessary to maintain a healthy democracy.  He and his organization exposed the CIA’s illegal cyber-warfare program designed to spy on American citizens in the “Vault 7” revelations. 

 

Drawing by Gitmo "Forever Prisoner" Abu Zubaydah

WikiLeaks brought to light the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys at Guantánamo Bay’s detention centre. America’s role in the bombing and drone campaigns in Yemen came to light through WikiLeaks’s reporting. Assange gleaned from confidential sources how Hillary Clinton, then the American Secretary of State, was complicit in the overthrow of Honduras’ democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009. The sleezy story of huge  bribes “speaking fees” paid to Hillary Clinton from Goldman Sachs to the tune of $600,000 revealed how entwined the corporate and political sectors are in America. There are many other stories WikiLeaks has covered over the years. 

ASSANGE is charged with eighteen counts of violating the American 1917 Espionage Act”. The Act "... was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime.” (Wikipedia) It also was used to curb dissident voices protesting America’s entry into WWI. It used the power of the Postmaster General’s office to confiscate pamphlets, newsletters, etc., deemed to hinder the war effort. Known and suspected foreign activists were arrested and imprisoned using the new powers under the Espionage Act. The socialist union organizer and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison under the "Sedition Act"* of 1918 (His sentence was later commuted by presidential decree.)  The Espionage Act was used with less frequency during WWII and infrequently thereafter, with exceptions such as the high-profile prosecutions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (who were executed in 1953 for smuggling atomic bomb secrets to the USSR), and in the 1971 failed attempt to convict “Pentagon Papers” whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. The criminal activity orchestrated from the White House (breaking into Ellsberg's psychiatrist’s office to gather material they could possibly use against him), angered the presiding judge who dismissed all charges against Ellsberg.   

 

DURING the Obama administration (2009-17), the Espionage Act was used to go after whistle-blowers in the nation’s security services and military. It was used more frequently under Obama than by any other U.S. administration up to that point. Chelsea Manning was charged with espionage in 2010, initially receiving a decades-long jail term (until her sentence was commuted by Obama in 2017). Similarly, WikiLeaks publisher,Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, was charged with “violating the Espionage Act by seeking classified information. Assange did not want to be at the mercy of a judicial system where the cards were stacked against him, so in London he requested asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy. He remained there until Ecuador (illegally under international law) withdrew their protection. Then he was sent to the maximum security Belmarsh prison where he waits to see if he will be deported to the United States to stand trial for espionage.  The case has been described as having significant implications for press freedom and First Amendment rights under the American constitution.

 

    Julian Assange in court behind glass partition

 MANY ASK: Without courageous whistle-blowers exposing wrongdoing in government and elsewhere, and without courageous journalists, and publishers willing to distribute such information, how will instances of government corruption and maleficence ever be addressed? After all, mea culpas are rare creatures in the worlds of politics and big business. 

The relentless persecution prosecution of Julian Assange by  U.S. and British governments, and the chilling effect this has had on whistle-blowers and publishers around the globe, calls to mind the spectre of a fourth estate, weakened and fearful of retaliation from authorities and, as a consequence, refusing to publish any whistle-blower disclosures in the future.

In 1971, the New York Times appealed in court to quash an injunction, made by the Federal Government, to cease publication of what came to be known as the “Pentagon Papers”. These records that Ellsberg had painstakingly photocopied (nearly 7,000!) came from a secret government report on the true history¹ of America’s involvement in Viet Nam. The court agreed with the Times’ lawyers—that the government had no right to stop a news organization from publishing leaked material that Ellsberg and his colleague Anthony Russo had uncovered. In his decision, Judge Murray Gurfein said he had

 

…rejected the administration's request for an injunction, writing that "[t]he security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.”

 

HOWEVER, the Court of Appeals reversed Gurfein’s decision and allowed the government’s injunction against publication to stand. But a similar case at the time in Washington D.C. ruled in favour of the Washington Post’s right to publish the “Pentagon Papers”. In turn, this discrepancy in rulings between the two lower courts brought the case before the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled in favour of press freedom and the press’s right to publish material that was in the public’s interest to know.

IN these censoress and restless times, it is difficult to imagine such a ruling happening today.

 

JULIAN ASSANGE may have only weeks, even days left before he is extradited to the United States to face charges of espionage and to begin what will amount to legal torture at the hands of America’s ‘justice’ system. His lawyers, just a few days ago, lost their appeal to the British High Court to dismiss the U.S. State Department’s extradition request for Assange to be sent to the United States for trial. He has one more appeal before the High Court and, as a last resort, may appeal to the European court of human rights, but both courts are unlikely rule in his favour. In the United States, Assange faces 175 years in prison for exposing government crimes, human rights violations and extra-judicial killings on the part of America’s political and military sectors. And for his ‘crime’ of revealing their sordid secrets, he will be sentenced to ‘death by a thousand cuts’ in courts of injustice and a lifetime to spend in a prison cell.

AS CHRIS HEDGES says in a recent column, if Assange goes down before the Kafkaesque manipulations of a legal system thoroughly corrupted by political agendas and corporate money, journalists everywhere can expect to be harried, even ruined by authorities, simply for doing their job and bringing to light government corruption and malfeasance wherever it lay.  The Assange story is  a shameful chapter in modern American history and the aftereffects of a guilty verdict will reverberate globally.   

 

“The extradition of Julian will be the next step in the slow-motion execution of the publisher and founder of WikiLeaks and one of the most important journalists of our generation. It will ensure that Julian spends the rest of his life in a U.S. prison. It will create legal precedents that will criminalize any investigation into the inner workings of power, even by citizens from another country. It will be a body blow to our amemic democracy...” (Chris Hedges, sheerpost.com June 17/22)

 

Cheers, Jake.

_____________________________________

* The 1918 Sedition Act  "...extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offences, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds." (Wikipedia)

 

 1. The "Pentagon Papers", officially titled Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defence Vietnam Task Force, is a United States Department of Defence history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.

 

 

     FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

DANIEL ELLSBERG (April 7, 1931 – June 16, 2023)

 Obituary from "Daniel Ellsberg's Website" 6/16/23

 

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Daniel Ellsberg Died Peacefully Today

A Letter from Daniel Ellsberg’s Family, 6/16/23:

Early this morning, Daniel Ellsberg died peacefully in his home in Kensington, CA. His cause of death was pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed February 17th. He was not in pain, and was surrounded by loving family. In the months since his diagnosis, he continued to speak out urgently to the media about nuclear dangers, especially the danger of nuclear war posed by the Ukraine war and Taiwan. (Links to the interviews are here.)

Daniel also shared many moments of love and joy in these months, including celebrating his 92nd birthday (April 7) and Patricia’s 85th birthday (April 26), and many visits and calls with friends and loved ones. He was thrilled to be able to give up the salt-free diet his doctor had him on for five years; hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppyseed bagels, and lox gave him extra pleasure in these final months. He also enjoyed re-watching his favorite movies, including several viewings of his all-time favorite, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Thank you, everyone, for your outpouring of love, appreciation, and well-wishes to Dan in the previous months. It all warmed his heart at the end of his life.

In his final days, surrounded by so much love from so many people, Daniel joked, “If I had known dying would be like this, I would have done it sooner.” (Patricia replied, “Then I’m glad you didn’t.”)

Daniel was a seeker of truth and a patriotic truth-teller, an antiwar activist, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a dear friend to many, and an inspiration to countless more. He will be dearly missed by all of us.

Thank you, Daniel, for sharing your wisdom, your heart, and your conscience with the world. We will keep your flame alive.

—Patricia, Mary, Robert, and Michael Ellsberg
Kensington, CA, 6/16/23

#####

We will be arranging a public Zoom memorial in the coming months. This will be announced on Daniel’s Twitter and Facebook with plenty of advance notice.

The Ellsberg family is extremely grateful to family friends Patrice Wynne, Jan Thomas (who began working as Daniel’s assistant in 1982), Tom Reifer, and Michele Reilly for their tireless and dedicated support in Daniel’s final months and weeks.

We are also extremely grateful to Nurse Jillian Tobin, Dr. Stephanie Marquet, and the entire Hospice East Bay team for providing Daniel and our family with impeccable care, compassion, and guidance during Daniel’s dying process.

Daniel’s surviving family:
Wife- Patricia Ellsberg (85)
Son- Robert Ellsberg (67)
Daughter- Mary Ellsberg (64)
Son- Michael Ellsberg (46)
Grandchildren:
(Robert’s children) Nicholas Ellsberg (36), Catherine Ellsberg (30), and Lukey Ellsberg (28)
(Mary’s children) Julio Martinez (38) and Ana Martinez (34)
Nicholas and Sophie Ellsberg have a daughter Eileen, age 3, Daniel’s great-granddaughter

[Photo by Christopher Michel 2020 @ChrisMichel. A note for media: Christopher took photos of Daniel and Patricia in 2020, and he has generously made them available via a Creative Commons attribution license here. Please credit them as follows: “Photo by Christopher Michel @ChrisMichel.” The Ellsberg family is grateful to Christopher for these beautiful photos, which captured Daniel and Patricia perfectly.]

 

RANT: UKRAINE IS ON THE BLUES TRAIN. AGAIN.

 

IT’S EARLY SUMMER HERE, an ocean away from the clusterfuck in Ukraine, and as much as I detest writing about it, it’s probably time to check in on the dust-up over there. The most significant event this month was the recent destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam along the Dnipro River. Massive flooding resulted downstream affecting both sides whose militaries face each other from opposite banks. It is likely that Ukraine is responsible—they’d shelled and sent missile strikes against the Soviet-era structure in the past, though some analysts suggest it might have been a malfunctioning turbine that exploded within the dam structure causing its collapse. So, we’ll see. Both sides blame the other, but my bet is on the Ukrainians* who did it to slow the advance of Russian forces across the Dnipro, and to distract the public’s attention away from the AFU’s (Armed Forces of Ukraine) poor showing, thus far, on the battlefield. Former CIA officer Larry Johnson suggests an additional reason might be to draw in humanitarian NGOs, adding yet another layer of involvement  by the West in Kiev's political agenda.  

UPSTREAM, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which has its own water reservoir (used in cooling the super-hot radioactive rods), is not currently affected by the loss of the Nova Kakhovka dam, though lower water levels at the plant remains a worrying possibility. Some analysts suggest the attack on the dam, if that's what it was, was meant to deliberately damage the nuclear facility (Europe’s largest). A core meltdown there would be an environmental disaster on the scale of Chernobyl and a major headache for the Russians, so let’s hope the AFU’s military chiefs don’t let the situation get out of hand. (It's their country, after all, or what's left of it, and they might want to prevent it turning into a radioactive cow patty. Just sayin')

 

ZELENSKY, a couple of days ago, announced the much-ballybooed Spring/Summer offensive has finally begun, and there have been reports of thwarted incursions against well-entrenched Russian defences, with significant losses of men and materiel, including recently deployed “Challenger” and “Leopard 2” tanks in several attempts to breech Russian lines. NOTHING major so far. 

BUT on a side note, 10 June saw the Belgium publication, De Tijd, claiming that the CIA passed on information to Belgium spy masters, in the weeks following the September 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, that those Ukrainian privateers who set sail in the Baltic from a Polish harbour in the yacht Andromeda and who are touted as the culprits were, in fact, taking their marching orders from none other than Ukraine’s General Zaluzhny who has been little heard from or seen in recent days. That’s as high up the food chain the conspiracy went with President Zelensky apparently having been kept out of the loop.😉 Natch! 

NOW WE ARE EXPECTED TO BELIEVE that a rogue element in the Ukrainian army is responsible for sabotaging the multi-billion-dollar Russian/German undersea pipeline last year. I wonder if Berlin is starting to regret all the military hardware and money they’ve been forking over to Kiev, especially now that Germany's economy is heading into a recession without all that cheap Russian natgas to keep its industries running.¹ With friends like that....Though, this latest ‘revelation’ could give Germany an excuse to pull away from supporting Ukraine. 

 

GERMANY MIGHT WANT to cite “Article Five” of NATO’s charter that says member states must come to their aid because Ukraine attacked them! (Or their pipeline, at least.) They might even accuse Poland of being a co-conspirator, since Andromeda launched from a Polish port.(BTW, Poland has recently filed a claim against Germany for WWII reparations to the tune of 1.3 trillion bucks!) Wouldn’t that be a sticky wicket! How's this scenario: Germany and the rest of NATO at war with Ukraine! (And Poland?) Be still my beating heart! My point is to say that NATO, as a military alliance, is increasingly fractious, and its enfeebled and uncoordinated response to Russian incursions into Ukraine make it obvious to anyone that it's a spent force, increasingly purposeless (Cold War's over, papa), and long past its sell-by date. In terms of geopolitics and its role in maintaining American hegemony, it is on the wrong side of history.

THEN, there are NATO members, Hungary and Türkiye, who increasingly march to a different drummer. Who's next to start missing the beat and going their own way, separate from the U.S. dominated organization? Maybe 'blows-hot-and-cold' French president Macron might someday grow a pair and just say "NO", and actually do something about it. And, all I'm saying is there are growing divisions in NATO that bode ill for the 74 year-old alliance. The hoary, Cold War coalition seems to be a shakier proposition with each passing day.²   

The Andromeda scenario is also convenient because it points the finger at anyone other than Joe Biden and his neocon crew, who if the maxim cui bono (“who benefits”) is followed to its logical conclusion, the biggest beneficiary of the pipeline’s destruction is the United States.   I'd suggest NATO start Chapter 5 proceedings against the U.S. but that would be like punching yourself in the face. Ouch!)

    It's air-sick bag time, again.

Fun times in the Old World.

 

BUT FROM THE NEW WORLD comes the Prince of Preening, our very own PM Trudeau on an unannounced 10 June visit to Kiev (along with Finance Minister Christina Freeland) to meet with President Zelensky and fawn all over him. Trudeau arrived with a half billion bucks of assistance (your tax dollars at work), as well as a Russian cargo plane. The huge “Antonov 124” had been held at Toronto’s Pearson airport since the start of the conflict in February 2022 and was stolen confiscated by Canada as part of the mindless sanctions’ regime imposed on Russia by the collective West. INCIDENTALLY, the plane first arrived in Canada during the Covid period, delivering medical test kits from China. Say, who do them Ruskies think they are delivering medical supplies over here! The nerve! We'll take their plane. That'll show 'em!

 

ADDITIONALLY, I wonder if PM Trudeau took a break from selfie-taking with Volodymir to ask the president why a Canadian journalist is on the Myrotvorets (“Peacekeepers”) kill list? This is a Ukrainian website which provides information on politicians, soldiers, public figures, writers, and journalists, like Aaron Mate of the Grayzone, who have been critical of the Ukrainian government. The site calls such people "enemies of Ukraine" just for exercising their right to speak and write freely in Ukraine and anywhere else. Even in Canada. The website has been criticized for its doxxing practices and inflammatory language that is a barely disguised call for violence against people it labels "anti-Ukraine propagandists". A high-profile example of this was the murder in Moscow of the writer Darya Dugina who was killed last August in a car bomb blast that many feel was intended for her father, a prominent Russian writer and staunch critic of Ukraine. 

 

On the “Peacekeepers” website, [Are they making a pun or expressing irony with their name? I can’t tell. Ed.] across Darya’s photo is the word “Liquidated”. And there are others. I wonder if Justin broached the subject of Mate and Mate's Grayzone colleague Anya Parampil being included on the kill list during his face time with Volodymir? (I doubt it because Mate and Parampil don't follow the standard script that MSM bloviates daily on the subjects of Ukraine, Russia, War and Peace [pun intended. Ed.] etc., those same scripts that globalist elites, like Trudeau, promote while in government.)   

 

    Hmmm. That looks SO familar....

In a Grayzone video, here, Aaron and Max Blumenthal (The Grayzone’s editor) discuss how far right, neo-Nazi militias, and groups inside Ukraine have a disproportionate influence on government policy and on Zelensky himself. Such groups, along with their odious ideology, have infiltrated the military, such as the Azov Battalion, for example.

 

 “The Canadian military was warned in 2015 before starting its Ukraine training mission about the dangers of the far-right within the Ukrainian military ranks, [Italics mine. Ed.] but the senior leadership largely ignored those concerns.” (Ottawa Citizen)

 

AT the 9:35 minute mark of the video with Max, Aaron cites an example from 2019 when Zelensky’s own outreach program to the disaffected citizens in the Donbass region,  a program designed to promote dialogue and peaceful coexistence, was disrupted by neo-Nazi militias who attacked speakers and broke up meetings in the eastern provinces, forcing the newly elected president to cancel the initiative. It is safe to say that his administration ever since has formulated antagonist and uncompromising policies towards the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians in general. Perhaps Zelensky's true colours came to the fore as he gained political power, or perhaps hard-liners and hard-right militias made his governing from a more progressive and democratic place impossible. In the end, it looks like he gave into the hard right forces opposing his early efforts at conciliation between the eastern half of Ukraine (largely Russian speaking)and the western (largely Ukrainian speaking).

His subsequent years in power have shown to me that Zelensky is nothing more than a huckster and oligarch wannabe who’s out for all he can get, a tin pot dictator, much in keeping with his predecessors. And if he didn't start out that way, he's destined to end up there, and with a big pile of moolah  by the time he's ready for his victory lap. 👏

 

AND BEFORE I bang on too long—let’s recap:

ʘ Ukraine’s “counter-offensive” has been happening for the last week or so. The front lines haven’t moved much but Ukraine continues to suffer heavy loses when they try to break through Russian defences.

ʘ Zelensky continues to ask for F-16 jet fighters from everyone. He’s being ‘slow walked’ to this goal because of the fear Ukraine might attack Russian territory and in doing so cross a red line that Moscow can’t allow. And besides, they cost a lot of money and will probably get shot down tout suite by superior Russian air defences.

ʘ More weapons to Ukraine; most of NATO remains on-board for continuing this clusterfuck. This month, Finland foolishly joins the boys playing in their sandbox. Sweden may join them next month if there's unanimity among NATO members.  (Thirty-one members, 31 votes; all it takes is one NO vote to put the kibosh to the deal. We'll see.) Growing concerns over the conflict, however, are seen in various European centres; push-back during EU parliamentary debates, anti-war commentary; protests are seen in Paris, Berlin, and other cities.

ʘ There’s a NATO summit meeting in Vilinus, Lithuania next month and this may prove to be a turning point in the conflict: Depending on how Ukraine’s counter-offensive is going, the blundering fucktards at NATO might decide to arm Ukraine with jet fighters and perhaps deadlier missile arrays. Of course, it will be the U.S. who sends many of the weapons; Europe is just about tapped out. However, American weapons manufacturing facilities are no match for Russian production capabilities. So how long the U.S. can supply Ukraine and still be ready for their slow pivot to China is anyone's guess. (And that's definitely another story!) Some commentators have even argued to give Ukraine tactical nuclear weapons! Zelensky and nukes--what could go wrong?

 

ONE WORRY I have is that these idiots, led by America’s Idiot-in-Chief, Joe Biden, will attempt to drag the ‘defensive’ alliance into direct conflict with Russia by having member states sign separate security guarantees with Ukraine, allowing them to send in what are, for all intents and purposes, NATO troops, but without the alliance having to formally declare war with Russia. Revanchist Poland is an example, with several hundred thousand troops at its command. If Poland intervenes on the side of Kiev, and Russia then attacks facilities inside Poland, such an act, so the brain trust would have us believe, would not trigger “Article Five” of the NATO charter, bringing all member states into the fray, since it was Poland that initiated its war with Russia. NEVERTHELESS, such a scheme would surely widen the war and ratchet up calls for NATO (mostly the United States) to intervene. This scenario, no doubt, will be discussed during the July NATO summit in Vilinus: seeing if anyone's interested in duking it out with Russia alongside Ukraine. But, what I hope to see at the summit is a reasoned discussion😂around moves to establish “off-ramps” and peace talks; the use of diplomatic and de-escalatory language, and agreeing to establish a European security arrangement that everyone can live with, including Russia. Because when you die all they leave you with is a dirt sandwich....

 

ʘ A COUPLE of watery stories to close: In the Black Sea, a Russian naval ship patrolling the waters above the TurkStream gas pipeline was attacked by Ukrainian "boat drones". I must admit the drones did look cool (before they were destroyed.) They reminded me of the Bat-Boat from another age. Say, you don't think anyone would want to blow up that pipeline, do you? Presumably, one of the markets for the (Russian--shhh!) gas is Eastern Europe, as the continent looks to source "sanctions-approved" gas supplies via Türkiye. Technically, Russian gas shipped via  Türkiye is not Russian gas. Technically. So, I guess it's..Turkish gas then? Such circumlocutions  make my head spin! BUT, about that drone boat attack, could it be the same bozos who blew up Nord Stream? Who was guiding those drones? Who gave them the green light to attack a Russian ship? Is the TurkStream pipeline next on their hit list? Dunno. 

 

But somebody wants to keep Europe cold and in the dark this winter, and be forced to pay through the nose for expensive imported LNG from America and other producers. Who could it be?....

ʘ ANOTHER "water" story, this one from the other  side of the world: Can anyone tell me what the hell a Canadian frigate is doing parading alongside an American destroyer in the Taiwan Straits? There was an incident  the other day when a Chinese warship cut across their path in a "warding off" (i.e. Fuck Off) gesture. How dare the Chinese float their boats in our water! Granted, the frigate HMCS Montreal was 6,000 miles or so from home, but that shouldn't matter. It's how we feel about the water--that it's our water--that's all that counts. Those Chinese are such bullies!

 

SO, LEMME GET THIS STRAIGHT: In Europe, we're holding the stick that's poking the Russian bear. And in far away China we're America's dopey sidekick as they try to tickle the dragon's tail. Anywhere and everywhere, it's all the same game for these empty-headed empty suits in Washington, Brussels and London (and Ottawa). Sure, we'll keep poking this and tickling that. Why not? What could go wrong? Eh?

 

“SOME DAMNED FOOLISH THING in the Balkans,” Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war. The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition.”  (Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August)

     

Cheers, Jake.

 ________________________________________

 

    Zelensky and Cleverly.

* AN ODD coincidence saw British Foreign Sec James Cleverly visiting Kiev the day before the dam blew on 6 June. And we know the British have a reputation for just this sort of sabotage going way back. Are the two events connected? Dunno, but it is passing strange, don’t you think?

 

1. The recent claim that Ukraine military personnel bombed the Nord Stream last September is highly unlikely. This latest leak, published in the Belgium newspaper  De Tijd newspaper, smacks of CIA "disinfo". Remember that in March, just days after the Hersh exposé revealed it was the Americans and Norwegians who did it, a convenient story appeared in American and European papers claiming it was some random, unnamed  "pro-Ukrainian" dudes on a yacht who were the Nord Stream bombers. This latest CIA  leak, suggesting it was Ukrainian military behind the September bombing, just adds convenient flesh to the bones of that cockamamie fairy tale. 

  

BUT, conveniently, the tale gives the United States both a cover-story to hide their culpability and also a bit of an off-ramp or excuse to withdraw their support from Ukraine, if they find it necessary to abandon that sinking ship in the near future. Those guys in Kiev are out-of-control, man! They’re craazy! Who knows what they’ll do next! We can't support them any more. We're outta here! Etc. 

THIS LATEST Andromeda  news story claims it was  General Valerii Zaluzhny, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s armed forces who was responsible for the Nord Stream attack! It seems the blame buck stops with Zaluzhny, who's rarely been seen in the last few weeks, adding to speculation that he's had a falling out with Zelensky. The words "fall guy" and “scapegoat” come to mind. 

[As I've said before, I'll go with Seymour Hersh's more logical explanation of who blew up the pipeline.  Any "conspiracy theory" on the attack that doesn't have America listed as "Operator #1, isn't worth its salt (water). Ed.]

 

2. Our federal Finance Minister, Christina Freeland, is in the running (a long shot) for Secretary General of NATO when Jens Stoltenberg retires. Here’s hoping the perky Davos diva takes the helm of S.S. NATO as it sails head-on into that iceberg. With any luck, she’ll go down with all hands. 

 

[Interesting factoid: I read that per capita Canada has donated more dough to Ukraine than the United States. All that $ to burn! It makes me so proud, I want to cry!😭Ed.]

 

Ottawa Citizen: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/allegations-of-canadian-troops-training-neo-nazis-and-war-criminals-sparks-military-review 

"Myrotvorets" home page:   https://myrotvorets.center/1588417-about-myrotvotrets-center/

 

Reverand Gary Davis

 

  A musical interlude

 

    "After the storm, I walked along the beach for a time until I came to a small cove where, in the tangled dross of the sea, there lay..."

       

 

 

       FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE!  

 

 FREE JU